Dublin asking house prices rise, but national prices continue to fall

Myhome.ie notes 4% rise in asking house prices in South Dublin, while Daft.ie reports 12% jump

The quarterly asking price figures from property websites Myhome.ie and Daft.ie point to two distinct trends in their latest reports.

They show that asking prices for residential property are still falling nationwide but rising again in parts of Dublin.

The Myhome.ie figures show a 1% year-on-year rise in prices in Dublin as a whole - the first it has recorded in six years. It also notes a near 4% asking price rise in south Dublin over the year-to-date.

It says that the average asking price of a house in Dublin now stands at €238,000.

Myhome.ie says that Cork house prices were unchanged for the second quarter in a row, while the city saw an annual percentage fall of 2%.

Overall, the asking price nationally fell by 1.9% in the second quarter of 2013 to stand at €193,000. This is a drop of 53% from the peak of the market.

Today's survey also shows that the average time to sale agreed in Dublin and Galway is six months, while it rises to eight months in Limerick and can take as long as ten months in Cork and Waterford.

Meanwhile, Daft.ie says that south Dublin asking prices rose by 12.2% in the year-to-date. Daft.ie says this is the strongest year on year growth in asking prices in any part of the country since 2007.

But it says that this figure highlights the differences in market conditions nationwide. Across Dublin, asking prices are on average 5.3% higher than a year ago, but in areas outside of Dublin, prices are down 8.9%.

The data show that prices are down by 6% on average in Cork city, and 6.6% in Galway. In Waterford city, prices are down 10.5% in the last year, while in Limerick prices have fallen 10.5%.

Outside the main cities, prices have fallen by 6% in Leinster, 11% in Munster and 12% in Connacht-Ulster, over the last 12 months.

Daft.ie also notes that the total stock of properties on the national market is just over 41,000 - the lowest since the middle of 2007.

''This is the first time such rapid growth in asking prices has been recorded anywhere in the country for six years,'' commented Ronan Lyons, economist with Daft.ie.

''The underlying cause of rising prices in Dublin is a lack of supply in the capital, while demand has steadily been rising. But with conditions still weak in many parts of the country, it is likely that over the next 12-24 months, we may have to get used to the idea of prices rising in some places - particularly in urban areas - while they fall elsewhere,'' he added.

The two property websites two come up with different figures because they use different databases of properties for sale on their respective websites and slightly different methodology in calculating the figures.

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